The CM will be accompanied on Sunday by Union Minister Nitin Gadkari during his stopover at the tunnel site.
“Along with the Chief Minister, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari is also arriving to provide an update on rescue and salvage operations,” the CMO added in its statement.
On Saturday, a senior official from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) provided an update on relief operations at the ongoing Silkyara tunnel on the Uttarkashi-Yamnotri highway.
The local management announced on Saturday that it would deploy a logging expert as part of ongoing efforts to free the 40 workers trapped in the tunnel for seven days.
A logging expert, Ashiq Hussain, called through the Forestry Department to the tunnel site, officials said Saturday.
Authorities added that they were seeking to reach the team through a vertical shaft from the top of the tunnel.
“We were inspecting to reach them horizontally, now we’ll do it vertically as well. A point just above the tunnel has been known and marked. From there, a hole will be drilled to get there. The intensity of the hole would be approximately three hundred -350 feet. . . The horizontal rescue attempt would also start from the end of the tunnel in Barkot,” said Baluni, Managing Director of Uttarkashi DFO.
Sharing the main points of the ongoing rescue operation, Bhaskar Khulbe, a former PMO advisor, told ANI: “Efforts are being made to strengthen the entire domain so that it remains absolutely safe for personnel to approach the rescue works we are considering. I hope that our concerted efforts will produce intelligent effects in the next four to five days.
In addition, on Saturday, Chris Cooper, a microtunneling expert, arrived at the site of the Silkyara Tunnel incident to monitor and oversee the rescue operation.
Cooper is a chartered engineer who revels in the structure of gigantic foreign civil engineering infrastructures, subway tunnels, giant caverns, dams, rail and mining projects.
“I have no details at the moment. I arrived here last night (Friday),” he told ANI.
“The heavy drill, which will arrive on Saturday from Indore, also arrived at the Silkyara tunnel site,” said Cooper, who is also a representative of the Rishikesh Karnprayag railway project.
The structure of the tunnel between Silkyara and Dandalgaon on the Brahmakhal-Yamunotri national road collapsed in the early hours of 12 November. (ANI)